REFERRING TO PERSONS AND GROUPS IN GORUM CONVERSATION Felix Rau - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

REFERRING TO PERSONS AND GROUPS IN GORUM CONVERSATION

Felix Rau University of Cologne Slides: fxru.org/slides/ICAAL7/ICAA7.html

REFERENCE IN CONVERSATION

Project on audio recognition (overlap) Backchannels Virtually nothing on Austroasiatic Very much work in progress

REFERRING

“it is the speaker who refers […]: he invests the expression with reference by the act of referring” (Lyons 1977, p. 177)

REFERRING TO A PERSON

SACKS & SCHEGLOFF (1979)

• 1. minimization
• 2. recipient design

ENFIELD (2013)

• 1. Design the expressions for the recipient
• 1. achieve recognition
• 2. invoke or display relationship proximity/type
• 2. Minimize the expressive means
• 1. use a single reffering expression
• 2. use a name rather than a description
• 3. use only one name for a binomial if possible
• 3. Fit the expressive format to the action being

performed

• 4. Observe local cultural/intitutional contraints
• 5. Associate the referent explicitly with one of the

speech participants

ESTABLISHING REFERENCE IS INTERACTIONAL

LK: ʈail ɖa'd ɖabu bo̰j baro so neta̰jju nekuʔ ‘for the tiles, I have given twelve hundred’ bãkita arlaŋ ‘no loan yet’ sidannuʈa ‘the ones from Sida’ DD: (mm) ‘uh huh’ LK: (lu)p inɖeŋolnu siɖannuʈa ‘Sida of Upper Inɖeŋol’ DD: ʔoʔo ‘oh yes’

“In making reference […], a speaker must select from a variety of lexical and gestural possibilities. Reference is therefore a matter of selection, whether lexical or otherwise.” (Enfield 2013, p. 433)

CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC INVENTORY

pronouns given names nick names kinship terms full names

(1) no'd 3sPRO.DIR ‘(s)he’ (2) subas=ɖi Subas=DEF ‘Subas’ (3) baiŋon=ɖi eggplant=DEF ‘Eggplant (a boy)’ (4) aba=niŋ father=1sPOSS ‘my father’

REFERENCE TO GROUPS

(5) no'dgi 3pPRO.DIR ‘they’ (6) miŋ=ɖu babu=ɖi I=and Babu=Def ‘me and the sir’ (7) buboŋ gutor=ɖigin boy girl=DEF:PL ‘the boys and girls’ (8) ana=niŋ=gi elder.brother=1sPOSS=PL ‘my elder brothers’

ASSOCIATIVE PLURALS

(9) liti=n=gi Liti=DEF=PL ‘Liti and so’ (10) amkṵj=niŋ=gi woman=1sPOSS=PL ‘my wife and so’ (11) garɖu=ɖigin=nu as̰uŋ guard=DEF:PL=ATTR house ‘the forest guard’s family’s house’

BACKCHANNELS

(MINIMAL RESPONSES) The Uh huh, Mm, Huh?, and Yeahs of the world.

problematic term not essentially different from other utterances not constitute a separate channel do not claim the floor

• verlap is seemingly unproblematic

Continuers (e.g. Mm hm, Uh huh) Acknowledgements (e.g. Mm, Yeah) Newsmarkers (e.g. Really?, change-of-state token Oh, the ‘idea-connector’ Right) Change-of-activity tokens (e.g. Okay, Alright) Assessments (e.g. Great, How intriguing, ); Brief questions (e.g. Who?, Which one?, or Huh?); Collaborative completions (“finishing each others s...”) sighs, laughter, nods etc.

MINIMAL RESPONSES CROSSLINGUISTICALLY

Are these function universal? Language specific inventories? Huh?

MINIMAL RESPONSES IN GORUM

Continuers/ Acknowledgement: mm / ə̃ change-of-state/recognition: (ʔ)oʔo

EXAMPLE 1

LK: gãsi tile'ɟɖi (.50) boɖnai gãsi tile'ɟɖi (.33) ‘old man Gansi,

• ld man Gansi

Bodnaik’ DD: ә̃ ‘uh huh’ LK: aɖi mersa koɖkejju (olku) ‘he was digging up the chili plants’ DD: ә̃ ‘uh huh’

EXAMPLE 2

LK: ʈail ɖa'd ɖabu bo̰j baro so neta̰jju nekuʔ ‘for the tiles, I have given twelve hundred’ bãkita arlaŋ ‘no loan yet’ sidannuʈa ‘the ones from Sida’ DD: (mm) ‘uh huh’ LK: (lu)p inɖeŋolnu siɖannuʈa ‘Sida of Upper Inɖeŋol’ DD: ʔoʔo ‘oh yes’

EXAMPLE 3

DD: norsiŋɖi ajtun ‘Norsing and Aitu’ LK: ʔo ʔo ʔo ‘yeah!’ DD: miŋnuʈa ‘are mine (my Panziabai/ritual relatives)’ LK: ә̃ ә̃ ә̃ norsiŋɖi ajtun ‘uh huh, uh huh, Norsing and Aitu’ DD: moɖun ‘Modu’ LK: ә̃ ә̃ ‘uh huh’ DD: kulnan ‘Kulna’ LK: ә̃ ‘uh huh’ DD: no'dnuʈa ‘are his’ LK: inɖi banzaɖiginnuʈa ‘this nephew’s household’s’ DD: ә̃ ‘uh huh’ LK: ә̃ ‘uh huh’

EXAMPLE 4

LK: uɖubun kajki bileŋ lupɖinu dorrajgi ‘yesterday, the one of our

• ldest one brought tiles

perhaps’ DD: ә̃ .ә̃ ‘uh huh’ LK: Domunu ‘of Domu’ DD: ʔo ʔo ‘oh yes’ LK: panongi neʔ ujjḛj dorrajgi ‘Pano and so went and brought some subasɖigin neʔ Subas and so’ DD: ә̃ .ә̃ ‘uh huh’ LK: duarejjej ‘they moved them.’

... AND NOW?

Gorum seems to be broadly in line with what we know of reference in conversation We need a better understanding of the function of mm, ə ̃ , and (ʔ)oʔo associative plurals are a fascinating window into the way social structure is negotiated more data and more time or better tools to analyse the data

THANK YOU!

Contact: f.rau@uni-koeln.de Slides: fxru.org/slides/ICAAL7/ICAA7.html